full boarding options for expat kids

[EMRmum]

Hi, looking for advice on boarding schools please. We are British expats living in the Middle East looking for a great boarding school for our daughter from year 9. She is an all-rounder - academic (CAT4 average 139), loves maths, in the netball team, does a lot of dance and plays piano. She's self-motivated and is pretty competitive (mainly against herself!). We've been to see Wycombe Abbey (and we and the kids loved it) and going to see Downe House in a few weeks. We obviously need backup options but we're struggling to find another suitable option other than these two.

Ideally we are looking for a good all-rounder school that is academically challenging but also lots of fun with good drama and dance offerings and somewhere that is easily accessed by both sets of grandparents (one in the north west and one in south east!) and also from Heathrow or Gatwick Airport. Since we are abroad, one on the most important things is that we need it to be full boarding rather than weekly boarding so that she won't be left at school with just a few other overseas kids every weekend. We want the weekends to be really fun with lots of friends and lots of activities going on. Happy to look at co-ed but struggling to find any other option that is academic and also still pretty full on a Saturday night.

Are there any other expat parents out there going through (or having been through) the same decision making process or any other parents at these kinds of schools who can suggest other good options for me please?

Thanks so much for your advice!

Rugby - great drama, full boarding. We really liked this one.
Bedes - has a dance school on site (and a zoo), not as academic. Full and Weekly boarding.
King's Canterbury - great drama and music. Full boarding. Academic
Teddies, Oxford - strong for music and drama, check on how full boarding is.
Cheltenham Ladies College

I'd suggest asking @MNHQ to move this post to the Boarding School board.

I think the only way to find out if a school is really full boarding or not is to visit and ask the kid taking you round. I think the other two proper full boarding ones you might consider are Benenden and St Mary's Ascot. Also maybe Cheltenham Ladies and Sherborne. Are you wanting all girls?

Useful thread here: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/secondary/4240811-Looking-for-full-boarding-girls-schools?show-all=1

With CATs like that, and open to co-ed, I'd add Sevenoaks to your list, as long as you're open to IB. Great academics, sport, drama, music, and very international, so although it's day/boarding, the large majority of boarders will be full boarders. Rather a long way from your family in the north west, but very close to Gatwick.

@EMRmum Queenswood in Brookmans Park, Herts. Not as academic as some but enough bright girls there. Drama is first class and dance too. Lots to do and very busy girls.

Wycombe is not full boarding. Nearly all the girls go home at the weekend apart from the Chinese/Russians.

Queenswood empties out at weekends these days and is definitely not full boarding. Also not helped by the fact that there’s no Saturday morning school. Those who stay are pretty much internationals - the emphasis these days is far more weekly and flexi boarding.

Oundle is three quarters full boarding and seen as academic but not quite so high as Wycombe Abbey. Is coed but if you like WA it has elements that are similar in terms of vibe.

I would also add Benenden to your list as a less academic (but still good!) option.

Thanks for this list. We’d kind of ruled out places like Rugby as too far away from airport. Ditto for CLC (I was at Malvern Girls’ so know that part of the country very well). Maybe I should look further afield though to give more chance of lower weekly boarding numbers.

Kings Canterbury was not on our radar at all so I’ll have a look at that - thanks.

Teddies we discounted as having a reputation as somewhere you go if you’re not academic. Maybe I got that wrong though! I’ll look again - it did have a good write-up in the good schools guide. Thanks.

Sherborne Girls is properly full boarding.

Rugby is probably not that much further from airport than King’s - there’s a fast train from London that takes about 52 minutes.

Canterbury over the hour I think.

Yeah I only realised there was a separate boarding school board after I’d posted it. So annoying. I’ll see if I can get it moved…

Thanks so much for linking to that other thread. Although two years old so might be a little out of date now post-covid etc but really useful to read all the comments and discussions about the different schools. Thanks!

As for your other suggestions and questions, we’re not only looking at girls - open to co-ed too but just can’t find something that’s right for our needs. Benenden and Sherborne both seem great but are too far away for my mum to get to and I’d like her to be able to do some exeats and come to concerts, etc. St. Mary’s Ascot sounds perfect but we’re not catholic so not allowed to apply there. It’s really so tricky to find somewhere with that perfect mix of location, boarding offerings and academics isn’t it!

In same geographical area you also have Uppingham and Oundle.

Marlborough another full boarding.

Oh yes I guess so! But then you have to get to Euston from the airport first. I come from the north west so I remember Rugby / Nuneaton on the Trainline to London and just think of it as far away :-). My brother was also at Rugby (many years ago when it was single sex!) so I remember the school. I’ll look again - thanks.

Thanks for this - Sevenoaks is not on my radar at all so I will look that up right away! Thank you!

Curveball - Millfield. Historically lots of expats/international, so boarding houses still full at the weekend. Great facilities and lots of sporting opportunities. Is however co-ed and may not be as academic as you are looking for.

Thanks to everyone for your messages.

@DibbleDooDah , Oundle sounds like a good option - I’ll look at that now. Thanks.
@OhCrumbsWhereNow thanks, I’d forgotten about Uppingham - will add that to the list of schools to look at, as well as Oundle. Marlborough, I think of more as being the jet-setting uber rich crowd which I’m not really looking for but I might be mistaken in that or just old fashioned and out of touch!

@PlasticPotPlant yeah actually someone else recommended Millfield to me too. It’s very sporty and lots of expat kids I think but perhaps not academic enough. I’ll have a look at it though. Thanks

We were in your position. Do make sure that the school is honest about the number of full boarders, and that your daughter is not left on her own with a load of Chinese students. Our daughter went to ACS in Cobham, and did the IB. Excellent for full boarding.

I have dc at Oundle. Plus points it’s plenty academic enough I think. 5 sets per year (although two at each level) and it seems everyone in sets 1 and 2 will be aiming for straight 9’s at gcse and set 3 will be mostly 9s with a few 8s. Set 4 aim for 7/8’s.
it is bonafide full boarding. No one goes home out of the boarding houses at weekends. Day pupils have their own house entirely. This term the only exeat is half term and there are lots of overseas including several Middle East expats and they all go home for half term and holidays. Masses of them go to London for flights and the school has a slick procedure to arrange this. Peterborough train station is 7 miles away and it’s very speedy on the express trains to the airports.

one if the most important decisions is to choose a school with zero flexi boarding at weekends. A lot of schools call themselves full boarding but allow flexi exeats (eg Uppingham) so be very wary of this if you have an overseas based child as it’s horrendous being left at school whilst others nip off home.
the travel links to airports are less of an issue than you think as long as you’ve chosen a proper full boarding school as chances are there are plenty heading to airports - as that’s why they’ve chosen a full boarding school in the first place.

Oundle is an all round school and whilst you need to be able to get fairly good results to be accepted, I’d say the emphasis is more on diligent pupils rather than brainboxes. These are the children that thrive in a ful boarding school as you need to be a self starter to take advantage of all that’s going on and enjoy full boarding.
my children have been very happy at Oundle and certainly excelling on their chosen fields of interests and achieved way more academically than I was expecting at 12/13 years old which js a reflection of the work hard attitude that exists within the school.
i think Rugby is a comparable school to Oundle. The closer you get to London, you will find more jet set/moneyed families and less bonafide full boarding schools

Christs Hospital - it really is full boarding and they need a good reason to get permission not to be there at the weekend unless its an exeat. They have one boarding house open for international students during each exeat which makes finding a guardian a bit easier if needed. Really easy to get to from Gatwick - direct train from Gatwick to the school's railway station.

Whilst it doesn't top the league tables there are a lot of very very bright kids there getting high grades, it has a far wider social mix than most boarding schools due to the extensive bursary scheme and is amazing for music. They do a couple of musical productions a year with a lot of dance in too. They have a very cool uniform and do some interesting stuff in London. Facilities are excellent - 800 acres of Sussex - as they are the best endowed school in the country. Has a specialist maths scheme set up by Charles II and is also sporty with interesting sports like sailing and fencing as well as the usual suspects.

Another curve ball would be Wells which is part normal boarding school part specialist music school so pulls in a lot of musicians from around the south of England and Wales so there is a genuine full boarding experience at the weekends. Again it doesn't set the league tables alight but has some very clever kids getting very good grades - with a specialist maths scheme. (Their league table scores are a bit artificially depressed by a number of specialist musicians only doing 2 subjects at A level to accomodate practice time - tends to be a priority for those heading to conservatoires on EE offers...)

Oakham? Not sure how many are full boarding

I felt a bit like that with King's... I suspect if you don't like Marlborough you might find this is similar.

Rugby open day was full of tweedy farmers looking a bit awkward, KC there were a lot of bankers and very expensive designer wear. And both the girls who took us round at KC were leaving for Hurtwood which didn't help sell the place (which I wanted to love as my dad was a scholar there and I had lots of happy friends there back in my day).

Roedean might be worth a look for all girls on the South Coast. But check the numbers on the boarding. Last I heard - but a few years ago now - was that they had a very large cohort of Chinese boarders who tended not to mix and everyone else went home at weekends.

Other places that might be good: Caterham, Sevenoaks, Charterhouse (newly co-ed)

Roedean? Think still full boarding but not sure if location is appropriate for you.

Another curve ball. Mayfield, all girls in East Sussex.

Have you looked at Worth? Friends of ours chose it in part because the majority of boarders remain over the weekend.

Oh this is all really useful information! Thank you so much! I will definitely look at Oundle as that sounds exactly what we are looking for. Thanks. I agree that the most important thing is to make sure there are lots of other kids around at the weekends and lots going on. This seems to be the hardest thing to get a real handle on so it’s great hearing from parents at the schools. Thank you!